What Goes Around, Keeps Going Around

Here at I’ve Tried That we normally try to review a single product to see if it is a scam or not. This article will be a little bit different from the norm.

After doing some research, trying to find the next big scam to warn you good folk about, I came across a website that was your typical scam site. It seemed nothing special; I noted it for a possible review and carried on. Then I came across another, and another, and another.

This quickly became a torrent of scam sites all using similar graphics and layout, and all of them trying to get your hard earned cash, with little in return.

In The Next 90 Seconds – Gain Access To A Work-At-Home Job That Can Earn You Up To $87 An Hour!

Search for that phrase in Google, it will surprise you. Around 3000 results! Now fair enough not all of those will be scam sites, some are sites warning you about the scam sites! On top of that Google results figures are not always to be trusted. However, what it says to me is that there re a lot of these sites around, and that’s worrying.

All of these sites are using just a few similar layouts, cookie cutter templates so that they can be thrown up in mere seconds.

This can often happen when a system of some sort is being shared by an affiliate scheme, as they normally link to their affiliate pages to help gain more people, or encourage you to buy memberships, but this isn’t the case with these sites.

These particular sites which have gained my ire today aren’t affiliate sites at all, they are basically link posting sites, with a slight twist.

What they want you to do is to post links on websites such as Craigslist, Facebook, and pretty much anywhere you can. These links are affiliate links if someone clicks it AND buys something you can get a commission in return.

This potential to earn pennies in some crazy way adds a tiny bit of legitimacy to it, probably enough for them not to get sued. However, the problem with these schemes is that they provide either:

Some generic adverts to post which hundreds or thousands of other people are all posting, which means that is tantamount to spam.

Or they leave you to write your own, which without experience as a copywriter or at least some marketing experience will mean that you won’t make a penny.

Once you hand over your email and disturbingly your phone number, you are sent to yet another cookie cutter website with the same sales blurb on it, and every time it will tell you that there are currently only 1 or 2 jobs left in your locality.

That is absolute rubbish and is a scammy way to heighten your anxiety before they start their sales spiel.

The websites proudly boast a carefully worded statement that says:

Work From Home Jobs Have Been Featured On:

And then lists a bunch of well-known news stations, further down the page is a new report talking about work from home jobs.

It makes it feel like this individual website has been featured by big name businesses, but they haven’t, their own privacy policy (again a sneaky trick, no one looks in a privacy policy for disclaimers) states that they have never been endorsed by them, it is just another scammy way of making themselves look legitimate.

This site and the products and services offered on this site are not associated, affiliated, endorsed, or sponsored by MSNBC, ABC, USA Today, CNN or Fox News, nor have they been reviewed tested or certified by MSNBC, ABC, USA Today, CNN or Fox News.

All of this has been to get you to buy a membership of a basic site which consists of upsell after upsell to wheedle more money out of you.

IF you are a regular reader of I’ve Tried That, I bet you can spot a dodgy website by now, and if they had managed to convince you to get to that stage you may have rightfully walked away.

Do you remember the twist I mentioned earlier? That’s right; you just handed over your email address and your phone number!

This will mean not only will you get bombarded by spam emails trying to promote further poor quality products to you, you may well get some pushy sales people calling you as well, and the sales people can be very hard to say no to, and often push expensive products and services (think hundreds or even thousands of dollars).

Familiarize Yourself with These Layouts

In order to protect ourselves online, we do not need to become cynical, but we need to familiarise ourselves with what is realistic and what isn’t and how these less than reputable people work their schemes.

Take a look a at this image, if you come across a site that looks remotely like one of these, run!

The Bottom Line

Scam sites, especially these sort of cookie cutter type sites are quite easy to spot when you have an idea what to look for.

Avoid anything that:

Has “endorsements” by big name T.V. companies, it’s usually fake.

Looks too good to be true

Offers professional rates for menial work like clicking or posting links

Suggests you only need to work a few hours a day to make incredible sums of money

I have also included a list of the sites I found that you should avoid, but this is by no means a complete list and often these sites will pop up, an scam people until they get shut down, and then pop up again under a different name (which is why there are so many of them.

Here is the ones I found in my initial search (I didn’t record them all)

www.leadinghomeprofitnetwork.com

www.online-income-access.com

homeincomepros.com

www.onlinesecureserver.net

www.profitsystemdirect.com

mysecureebiz.com

securehcs.com/01

www.123-income-academy.com

www.livehomeprofitinstitute.com

jerome-makemoneyfromhomeonline.blogspot.com/2011_08_01_archive.html

Help us grow this list! Leave a comment below with any similar sites you’ve found.

Dean is self employed, working mainly with WordPress related projects and online marketing, whilst juggling a family life. A self confessed geek, he loves everything (well almost) SciFi and Fantasy related.

I’ve Tried That was started in 2007 to help protect consumers from falling victim to online scams. We’ve written thousands of articles, helped millions of people, and have saved a countless amount of money from falling into the wrong hands.